Hey guys! I'm not dead and neither is this book😃 Even though it has literally been over 200 days since I updated this book, I'm finally posting chapter 10! Also, I accidently published this chapter halfway through writing-

Anyway, I hope you all still enjoy reading this even though it has been manyyyy many minutes, and enjoy the chapter :))

Sophie POV

Sophie stood staring out a small window in her room, knees locked and eyes locked on the empty hills outside. There were hills wide and tall for what seemed like miles, not one person or one creature occupying any space.

She turned to the bookcase, checking once more that the leather book was still there, as if it could disappear out of sight. Sophie refused to think in detail about her current well being. Knowing her thoughts would only push further into distress.

Dining hall's on the right all the way down the hall.

Better fed and frantic than hungry and frantic, she decided, taking small steps towards the door. Sophie's hand hovered over the doorknob, wary of it being tampered with.

"I've got to leave this room sometime," she murmured to herself. Twisting the knob and stepping out into the dimly lit hall she paused, waiting for something to occur. But after several moments, she turned to the right and continued to the end of the hall as Ruy instructed.

The soles of Sophie's shoes clattered on the cold concrete floors, echoing throughout the empty hall. There was an odd warmth to the air here—wherever she currently was—contradicting the fear instilling night she had previously experienced.

She arrived at the tall oak doors, the room inside so silent Sophie thought she might be at the wrong room.

"Screw it," she muttered to herself, pushing the doors open and strolling into the large hall.

There were a dozen or so circular tables in even rows throughout the room. Most of the tables only had two or three people sitting, despite the amount of chairs for five to six. Heads turned as she walked between tables and empty chairs.

Sophie grabbed an oddly shaped fruit, trying to ignore the brown spots forming on the surface when something about the air changed, the temperature seeming to increase. She turned her head, and standing behind with just inches between them was a girl.

She had to be around the same age as Sophie, with hair that almost looked pink. Her hair was a platinum blonde, with a strong pink undertone that consumed her hair when the moonlight from the limited windows shone through. Her skin was pale and sunkissed at the same time, and dotted with light freckles. Her eyes were the lightest she'd seen yet of the clearly inhuman beings she was currently surrounded with.

The girl looked at Sophie with disinterest, pushing the fruit in her hand back into the bowl.

"Don't eat that," she started, "it'll make you feel horrible and tastes even worse." Sophie stared at the girl, and she stood unfazed. "If you come with me, you can get some decent food that won't kill you," she walked away through a back door leading outside.

After moments of doubt and deciding that she was already screwed considering who she was already surrounded with, Sophie followed the girl, eyes following as she walked. As she exited the dimly lit dining hall she gazed towards the open sky, in shock as she realized it was dawn, recalling the night she had been so far into when she was taken from the holiday dream that was Maylee's home.

There was something hauntingly beautiful about the glow of the moon as it faded out, the sunlight beginning to peek above the horizon. The moonlight illuminated every corner and face of the world around her, and despite the chilling aura around her, she felt safe.

Well, almost. Considering the group of most likely criminals around her, and the fact that she had just been snatched up by a gang of people wearing cloaks like Snape from Harry Potter, maybe that wasn't the first thing that came to mind, but it was one of the first feelings. And that feeling was oddly comforting.

Sophie followed the girl as they approached a small cluster of large trees. She took her time looking over the trees, each one having deliberate markings and symbols carved into the ancient wood. As the sun broke the horizon, small fragments of sunlight began to filter through the delicate features of the land around her.

She had been so captivated by the markings in the trees—now seeming to glow with the soft light of early dawn—that she hadn't thought to look up.

The sound of a door swinging on its hinges caused Sophie to glance skyward. A small structure balanced precariously in a place where the tree branches swirled together in a breathtaking base. The structure looked almost like a treehouse, made up of various woods and random pieces of metals.

Two boys popped out of the handcrafted treehouse door, peering down on Sophie and the other girl.

The two boys from the movie theater.

How much planning had gone into her kidnapping??

"Ah, screw this, she brought the blonde one," Ruy remarked. Sophie rolled her eyes, hoping he could see them from here.

"The who?" the other boy questioned.

The girl stood beside Sophie, sighing, and she could tell she was used to these two. She turned to face Sophie, a weary grin on her face.

"These two," she looked back up at the two boys who were now cackling at some joke, "are Idiot #1 and Idiot #2." She wasted no more time standing below the intriguing spot, instead she began climbing up towards it, using the digs in the tree wood like a ladder. "Come on," she called back to Sophie.

After many moments of embarrassingly struggling to scale the trees, she joined the three strangers in the treehouse. The treehouse was one simple room with as many pillows, blankets and cushions that could possibly fit. It was decorated with nature clippings, small lights and candles and what seemed like a thousand books and photographs.

Ruy and the other boy moved to sit on a small, worn sofa, the other girl climbing into a spot near the bay window. Sophie awkwardly stood in the doorway, unsure of where to sit.

"If you're just going to stand there you can go stand downstairs-"

"Ruy, shut up," the girl intervened. "You can sit wherever. You can bring any pillows or cushions over." Sophie grabbed a cushion to sit on and got comfortable in between the three of them, leaving enough space in case she needed to make a quick escape.

"I'm Aelia, by the way," the clear eyed girl said.

"Aelia," Sophie repeated. "Cool name." She smiled back, and gestured over to the two boys who were staring at them with blank looks on their face.

"Well she already knows me," Ruy commented. "Everyone knows me," he continued, a smug grin on his face. It took everything in Sophie not to roll her eyes for the second time, thankfully the last boy saved her from that struggle.

"Hey, I'm Alvar," he gave a small smile. "We've met before." Sophie's smile dropped, an alarmed expression taking its place.

Aelia gave Alvar a hard look, and Ruy stopped moving.

"The movies! We met at the movies," he clarified. Sophie was hardly convinced that was what he had originally intended. She attempted to put on a comfortable smile, knowing that it definitely didn't look comfortable.

After moments of deafening silence, Aelia chimed in.

"So, Sophie. Do you have any questions? I'm guessing it's pretty, uh, confusing," she empathized.

"What is?"

"Oh, the whole being taken thing, I guess."

"Oh, yeah. I did have one question," Aelia nodded, glad to have something else to talk about.

"What's with the time shifts?" Sophie inquired. "When you guys took me from that party, it was around eleven at night. But as soon as we got here, it was already well into morning. And like, two minutes ago it was definitely night time, but now? Now there's so much sunlight that it seems like midday. But clearly it's not, considering we're having dinner."

She glanced out the window, seeing the sun stream through branches and green leaves.

"Well," Aelia started, "I'm sure you know what time zones are." Sophie nodded, glad there was one thing familiar about this place.

"Our time zone here doesn't necessarily have a name like the human timezones, because there would honestly be too many to name. The one we're currently in is on the western hemisphere—which is where you lived, if I remember correctly—so our seasons align with territories like your North America. As you know, we're in winter right now, so hours of light are less and we have longer hours of darkness. Or, that's how it would be in a human territory. Because of the terrain and being tampered with abilities, the hours of light and dark differ depending on the cycles of land around us."

"Wow," was all Sophie had to say. "So, because of the tilt during summer and winter, you guys get like, super unpredictable weather?"

"Yep, and then because of that, unlike some areas like what you would call Alaska, the light doesn't only change but makes this base unusable for half the year. It wouldn't be so messed up if it weren't for the light fractions and illusions."

"Kind of like if a planet is only habitable during perihelion, or vice versa," Sophie confirmed.

"Mhmm," Aelia replied.

"You're pretty smart, huh?" Alvar wondered aloud.

"No," Sophie shot back, a deadpan look on her face, "they're stealing idiots off the street for fun."

He laughed at Sophie's sarcasm, and she was glad to get rid of some of the tension in the air.

"So now that you guys snatched me from my best friend's Christmas party on a random Sunday evening, what's exactly everyone's plan for me now?" she questioned.

Aelia shrugged, her piercing eyes going straight through Sophie's.

"I mean, there's really only one thing you can do, right?"

Sophie tilted her head to the side, almost trying to see through Aelia's mind.

"And what's that?"

"Train."